Dr. Katharina Rein

Dr Katharina Rein is the trainings coordinator at Humboldt Graduate School, where she leads the team responsible for all HGS workshops.

She is a qualified university researcher, certified communication trainer, process facilitator and first aider for mental health. 

During her academic career, she was a guest professorat the University of Vienna and worked as a researcher and lecturer at the universities of Potsdam and Weimar.
She holds a doctorate in Cultural History and Theory from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her award-winning dissertation on stage magic in the late nineteenth century was published in German and in English. She is also the author of two books on gothic and horror cinema and the editor of anthologies on magic and illusion. In addition to publishing over 25 academic essaysin four languages, Katharina Rein has contributed articles to exhibition catalogues, art books and programme booklets.

She acted as a peer reviewer for renowned international journals, and is regularly consulted by the media as an expert - by the BBC World, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, various podcasts, and the German and Austrian press.

Peer-reviewed publications
Monographs and anthologies

1. K. Rein. Techniques of Illusion. A Cultural and Media History of Stage Magic in the Late Nineteenth Century. Abingdon & New York: Routledge 2023 (Advances in Theatre and Performing Arts Studies; IKKM book series)
2. K. Rein (ed.). Magic: A Companion. Oxford et al.: Peter Lang 2022 (Genre Fiction and Film Companions)
3. K. Rein (ed.). Illusions in Cultural Practice: Productive Deceptions. Abingdon & New York: Routledge 2021 (Research in Cultural and Media Studies; IKKM Book Series)
4. K. Rein. Gothic Cinema. Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2021 (Genrediskurse)

Articles in journals

1. K. Rein. “Research, Slay, Repeat. Speicherung und Wiederholung in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.“ Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung 7/1 (2019). DOI: 10.16995/zff.1297 (OA)
2. K. Rein. “Rupturing Illusionism. The Bullet Catch.” Early Popular Visual Culture 16/2 (2018): 151–71. DOI: 10.1080/17460654.2018.1545818
3. K. Rein. “Mind Reading in Stage Magic: The ‘Second Sight’ Illusion, Media, and Mediums.” Communication+1, vol. 4 (2015), iss. 1, art. 8. DOI: 10.7275/R50C4SPB (OA)
4. K. Rein. “’Never Sleep Again’–Horrific Beds in Wes Craven’s Nightmares.” The Luminary 3 (2013) (OA)

Book chapters & anthology contributions

1. K. Rein. “Resurrections of the Dead. The Technological Uncanny of Ghost Production.” In Screens and Illusionism: Alternative Teleologies of Mediation, ed. by Dominique Jullien and Peter Bloom. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2024 (Edinburgh Studies in Film and Intermediality)
2. K. Rein. “’Chasing Spies – So Old-Fashioned!’ Toxic Nostalgia and the Undying Past in Sam Mendes’s Skyfall (2012).” In Toxic Nostalgia on Screen. Undead Memory in the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Simon Bacon, 29–44. Lanham: Lexington Books 2024
3. K. Rein. “Invocation de la Vie: Les Automates Magiques.” Transl. by Mireille Berton. In L'Outre-humain. Automates, performances mécaniques et cultures spectaculaires, ed. by Mireille Berton and Stéphane Tralongo, 137–156. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion 2025
4. K. Rein & Will Houstoun. “Video Conferencing and Magic.” In: Video Conferencing: Practices, Politics, Aesthetics, ed. by Jan Distelmeyer, Olga Moskatova, and Axel Volmar. Bielefeld: Transcript 2023
5. K. Rein. “Vanishing Technology. Transparency of Media in Stage Magic.” In Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance. Deep Time of the Theatre, ed. by Nele Wynants, 99–114. Cham, CH: Palgrave Macmillan 2018
6. K. Rein. “Sawing People in Half. Sensationalist Magic Tricks and the Role of Women on Stage in the Early Twentieth Century.” In: Sensationalism and the Genealogy of Modernity. A Global Nineteenth-Century Perspective, ed. by Alberto Gabriele, 163–91. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan 2017
7. K. Rein. “Magicians and Early Cinema.” In A History of Cinema Without Names/2, ed. by Diego Cavallotti, Simone Dotto, and Leonardo Quaresima, 169–78. Milan: Mimesis 2017
8. K. Rein. “The Proletarian Ghost. Freddy Krueger as Parasite.” In Beyond the Night: Creatures of Life, Death and the In-Between, ed. by Nadine Farghaly, 181–201. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2015
9. K. Rein. “Gespenstische Medien und mediale Gespenster. Jules Vernes Das Karpathenschloß und Bram Stokers Dracula.“ In “Lernen, mit den Gespenstern zu leben.“ Das Gespenstische als Figur, Metapher und Wahrnehmungsdispositiv, ed. by Lorenz Aggermann et al., 317‑28. Berlin: Neofelis 2015
10. K. Rein. “Archives of Horror. Carriers of Memory in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” In Undead Memory. Vampires and Human Memory in Popular Culture, ed. by Simon Bacon, and Katarzyna Bronk, 131–55. Oxford et al.: Peter Lang 2014
11. K. Rein. “’Are you watching closely?’ Magie und Medien in Christopher Nolans The Prestige.” In: (eds.): Re: Medium. Standortbestimmungen zwischen Medialität und Mediatisierung, ed. by Simone Brühl, and Jakob Christoph Heller, 145–65. Marburg: Tectum 2012

Non-peer-reviewed publications
Monographs

1. K. Rein. Gothic Cinema. An Introduction. Wiesbaden: Palgrave Macmillan 2023 [Springer imprint]
2. K. Rein. Techniken der Täuschung. Eine Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Bühnenzauberkunst im späten 19. Jahrhundert. Marburg: Büchner 2020
3. K. Rein. Gestörter Film. Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. Darmstadt: Büchner 2012

Articles in journals   

1. K. Rein. “’Like a Jedi master.’ Gesture Control, Tech Demos, and Magic.” Navigationen 23/1 (2023) “Tech|Demo”: 61–74. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25819/ubsi/10297 (OA)
2. K. Rein. „Kommentar zu: Georges Méliès: ‘Le Théâtre Robert-Houdin (1845–1925).‘“ Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung 5/2 (2014): 259–65
3. K. Rein. “’Got blood all over my best clownsuit.’ Ein Abriss zum Horror.“ Denkbilder. Das Germanistikmagazin der Universität Zürich 28 (2010): 6–8
4. K. Rein. “Angst vor dem Erblinden. Die Bestrafung der Onanie in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Der Sandmann.“ Kritische Ausgabe. Zeitschrift für Germanistik und Literatur 19 (2010): 7‑10

Book chapters & anthology contributions

1. K. Rein. “Women in Stage Magic around 1900.” In Magic: A Companion, ed. by Katharina Rein, 129–42. Oxford et al.: Peter Lang 2022 (Genre Fiction and Film Companions)
2. K. Rein. “Introduction.” In Magic: A Companion, ed. by Katharina Rein, 1–17. Oxford et al.: Peter Lang 2022 (Genre Fiction and Film Companions)
3. K. Rein. “’The Vanishing Lady’, the Railroad, and Illusions of Movement.” In Illusion in Cultural Practice: Productive Deceptions, ed. by K. Rein, 87–103. Abingdon & New York: Routledge 2021 (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies; IKKM Book Series). DOI: 10.4324/9781003188278-8 (OA)
4. K. Rein. “Introduction.” In Illusion in Cultural Practice: Productive Deceptions, ed. by K. Rein, 1–12. Abingdon & New York: Routledge 2021 (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies; IKKM Book Series)
5. K. Rein. “MagiCIAns.“ In Universalenzyklopädie der menschlichen Klugheit, ed. by Markus Krajewski, and Harun Maye, 22–4. Berlin: Kadmos 2019
6. K. Rein. “Les médias et les tours de clairvoyance.“ Transl. by Florent Fajole. In Machines. Magie. Médias, ed. by Frank Kessler, Jean-Marc Larrue, and Giusy Pisano, 59‑73. Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion 2018
7. K. Rein. “Zmizet trikem.” Transl. by Martin Pokorný. In Mizení. Fenomény, mediální praktiky a techniky na prahu zjevného, ed. by Kateřina Svatoňová, and Kateřina Krtilová, 203–19. Prague: Karolinum 2017
8. K. Rein. “Das Monster unter den Menschen. Alan Balls Serie True Blood und der Vampir im Brennpunkt der Öffentlichkeit.“ In Dawn of an Evil Millennium. Horror/Kultur im neuen Jahrtausend, ed. by Jörg van Bebber, 533–39. Darmstadt: Büchner 2011

Articles in exhibition catalogues

1. K. Rein. “On Magical Boxes.” In Search Engine, ed. by Jayne Wilkinson, 170-174, Viareggio: Idea Books 2024
2. K. Rein. “’I wouldn´t deceive you for the world. Bühnenzauberkunst im späten 19. Jahrhundert.” In Bezaubernd – Magie und Zauberkunst, ed. by Angelika Mundorff, and Barbara Kink, 136–53, Museum Fürstenfeldbruck 2020
3. K. Rein. “Fantastical Lives.” In Illusions. The Art of Magic, ed. by Suzanne Sauvage, Christian Vachon, and Marc Choko, 42–51, Musée McCord Museum, Montréal, Canada 2017
4. K. Rein. “Vies Romancées.“ In Illusions. L’Art de la Magie, ed. by Suzanne Sauvage, Christian Vachon, and Marc Choko, 42–51, Musée McCord Museum, Montréal 2017 (French translation of “Fantastical Lives”)

Book reviews

1. K. Rein: “Frances Larson, Severed. A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found. London: Granta.“ Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung 2 (2015): 107–10
2. K. Rein: “Killer/Culture. Serienmord in der populären Kultur, ed. by Stefan Höltgen, and Michael Wetzel, Berlin: Bertz + Fischer 2010.“ Kritische Ausgabe. Zeitschrift für Germanistik und Literatur 20 (2011): 88–9.

Translations

1. Matthew Solomon, “Méliès und die Materialität moderner Magie.“ Translation (English–German). Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung 7/1 (2016): 169–84
2. John Durham Peters, “Gott und Google“ [excerpt from: The Marvelous Clouds], Translation (English–German). Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung 6/2 (2015): 93–107
3. Tim Ingold, “Bauen Knoten Verbinden.“ Translation (English–German). Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung 6/1 (2015): 81–100